The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday said it would expand the use of the NS1 antigen test — a rapid detection test for dengue fever — encouraging physicians to use the test if patients are suspected of having the virus.
Tainan Hospital Division of Infectious Diseases director Hung Yuan-pin (洪元斌) said dengue fever is mainly transmitted by bite from Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, with Aedes aegypti mosquito bites the main cause of the virus’ transmission in Tainan last year.
“The most common symptom of dengue fever is fever. Other common symptoms include headache, eye pain [behind eyes] and muscle pain, but symptoms might not be obvious at first,” he said. “Many people last year suffered gastroenteritis.”
Photo: Lin Yen-tung, Taipei Times
Hung said the diagnosis of dengue fever can be delayed if doctors rely on clinical observations, because about 30 to 50 percent of people develop typical dengue fever symptoms, and people with Chikungunya fever or Zika virus might suffer from similar symptoms.
The rapid screening test allows doctors to confirm whether a person has dengue fever in about 15 to 20 minutes (traditional tests take about an hour), with an accuracy rate of more than 95 percent, he said.
According to current regulations, only medical professionals are allowed to perform the rapid screening test, which requires a blood sample.
Because of the seriousness of the dengue fever outbreak in Tainan last year, many people are going to hospitals asking for a rapid screening test even when they only have a cold, Hung said, adding that the test is only covered by National Health Insurance if a doctor considers it necessary.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the